BioHealthInvestor.com wanted to put together a list of key biotech and BioHealth-related stocks that had the most upside for 2010 according to consensus analyst price targets. This is of course no exact science for many reasons, but getting a lot of consensus price targets together is often a sign of at least where to start when looking for upward price targets in stocks. And we all know that BioHealth and biotech stocks often offer the upside of the century as these companies all hold a bit of your own personal lottery ticket in all of their share prices.

After taking a look at our normal universe of biotech and biohealth related stocks. it was obvious that MannKind Corp. (NASDAQ: MNKD) still has the most upside from the consensus price targets IF it is hit. Then in order of expected share price appreciation comes Theravance Inc. (NASDAQ: THRX), Dendreon Corp. (NASDAQ: DNDN), Incyte Corporation (NASDAQ: INCY), and then came Illumina Inc. (NASDAQ: ILMN), Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ALNY), and Gilead Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ: GILD).

The stocks above all had upside of over 25%. The other stocks here are the ‘lower rung’ of upside expectations but are all still offering over 20% upside to the consensus analyst price targets (again IF they are hit). Of the 13 stocks with markets caps of $750 million (or almost $750 million) which we cover, these still had upside of over 20% except a few: Savient Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: SVNT), Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN), Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: ONXX), PDL BioPharma, Inc. (NASDAQ: PDLI), OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: OSIP), and Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ: CELG).Read more

It is common that when mergers are announced that some shareholders are either unsatisfied or want more. Sepracor Inc. (NASDAQ: SEPR) and its proposed $2.6 billion sale to Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma Co. might not be enough to satisfy everyone involved in the shareholder side of the deal. That is the case if you read a Bloomberg report from Tuesday night and this could be the first of many such suits.

It appears that the allegations are that the terms of the merger are detrimental to shareholders because of a break-up fee and shopping provisions. This is an effort either to block the merger or to secure a higher price and better terms. So here is how the $23.00 stacks up… It was a 27.6% premium to the September 1 price, but was a 48% premium to the 6-month average.

This deal does make-whole anyone who bought shares over the last year. But it comes with a huge hit for many investors who have been in it for the long-term. From the end of 2004 to mid-2007 this was generally a $40 to $60 stock. Then it was a $30 stock and the stock was in the low $20′s to $30 for most of the period from mid-2007 to mid-2008.

If you look at the deal on a valuation basis, it seems very cheap. The Thomson Reuters figures for 2010 are $2.91 EPS and $1.26 billion in revenues for 2009 and $2.99 EPS and $1.31 billion in revenues for 2010. In short, The company is selling for less than 8-times a blended earnings estimate and just over 2-times revenues for a blended time horizon.

Any time a merger is seemingly based upon a 52-week high, it is hard to feel too sorry for investors. At least until you start looking at the multiple of earnings being so low. We screened recently for all of the low P/E stocks in drug and biotech and there are still many other low P/E multiples in there.

We also are putting together another piece right now containing the following stocks as merger candidate discussions:

This week came a merger of at least one of the drug and biotech players we expected to occur. That was in Sepracor (NASDAQ: SEPR). We will be putting together a list of much more detailed picks in teh sector this coming week.

Some of these are our own picks which we think should be acquired, and some are current biotech-drug targets which others feel are on deck. To see the full deal on how this related, BioMedReports.com has a full breakdown on teh Spreacor terms and we used this for determining value on some of our other picks….

Alnylam (Nasdaq: ALNY) leads a short list of some of the fastest-growing biotech stocks where analyst estimate revisions continue to rise.

BioHealth Investor began by analyzing 171 stocks in the biotech sector based on revenue growth over the trailing four quarters, identifying 30 stocks in the sector with better than 50 percent revenue growth over the past 12 months.

We then screened those 30 stocks to look for those very few names that have seen both strong growth in at least the past two years and positive analyst estimate revisions in recent months, in an effort to find stocks with strong trends that still have potentially improving operations going forward.

With a new class of potential biotech medicines, aggressive goals for development and partnerships, cash on the books and a large addressable market, Alnylam tops our short list of biotechs with strong growth and increasing analyst estimates.

There was an intersting note out of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: ALNY). The company has withdrawn from an upcoming investor presentation for this coming Friday.

While it is very possible that this is something completely harmless or just over a scheduling conflict, traders right now are looking for any and all things that could point to the next buyout candidate in a rapidly consolidating biotech sector.

Whether or not anything comes from that or whether this is just noise will be debated by traders and analysts alike. We saw 17,371 shares trade after the close, but a few hundred shares traded up at $36.00 since after this news was released.